Meet the team

As founding chairman, I have loved watching our festival grow to become the major event it is today, rich, rewarding, fun and fabulous.

My day job is group arts editor for Sussex Newspapers, but in my deluded mind, I am an athlete, having run 40 marathons.

I have also written 12 published books including Outrunning The Demons and Keep On Running, plus three books on Chichester. My vices include a tragic addiction to the Rolling Stones, balanced by undying love for The Beatles. I am married to Fiona; our children Adam and Laura are both NHS doctors working in Newcastle.

In 2012, when I was Mayor, a small group created the Festival of Chichester – Phil and I have been on the committee from the start, and are still very much involved in what we believe to be an annual exciting and excellent feast of culture by and for our community.

I am immensely proud of this achievement.

Having spent my working life in youth work, and having been Mayor of Chichester three times, I now continue to give my time as a City Councillor, as well as being a tour guide of our city, the City Walls, and the Cathedral.

Sussex born and bred, my career has been predominantly as a writer of travel guides to countries as diverse as Iran and Indonesia, Belgium and Bosnia, with a particular speciality in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.

I am also a trained teacher, and taught for three years in Japan in the early 1990s. I’ve lived in Chichester since 2016 regularly moonlight as a front of staff helper at the Novium/TIC.

Though my university education was science dominated, I was also the arts editor of the student newspaper. I currently contribute to a cultural-geopolitical website about the Caspian Region.

I’ve now retired from freelance translation but my background is in marketing communications and one of my hobbies is choral singing.

I run musicinportsmouth.co.uk, a local classical music events and news website. Along with others on the festival committee, I set up the Chichester Fringe in 2021.

My aims are to develop and enhance the festival’s digital offering and marketing communications in general. 

I have been fortunate in having had a truly international and diverse career, largely in the financial markets but also in marketing, recruitment and hospitality.

My interests have always been firmly in the arts and as a registered Blue Badge Guide I very much enjoy sharing the delights of our culture with visitors from far and wide.

Having lived abroad for many years I’m now back to my roots in Chichester and in recent years have been very involved in the local community, having run an award winning community website and working as CEO of the Chichester Chamber of Commerce through the challenges presented by Covid.

I’m delighted to be part of the Festival team and look forward to helping it continue to grow and prosper.

The Revd Dr Earl Collins is a native of Belfast. He was for many years a Benedictine monk (and was Abbot of the German monastery in Jerusalem).

For the last six years he was Clergy Development Officer for the Diocese of Chichester and a vicar in Hove.

He is delighted to be at the cathedral where his brief is education and the teaching of theology.

I am committed to helping creative people have more and better ideas.

I do this through being a patent attorney specialising in protecting CleanTech inventions.

I also put on events that give creative people a platform to express their ideas and concepts. I also run parties that support businesses. I also compose and play music for people to dance to.